Steps after replacing hard drive

I have a TiVo Series 3 (OLED display model TCD648250B). I have been running it since Jan 2007. It has 2 hard drives (both 750GB Seagate DB35's).

The internal hard drive is going bad (recordings would lock up on playback). I connected the drive to my PC and ran Seagates Seatools to confirm that it has bad sectors. That drive in particular was installed before I even powered that TiVo on for the first time in Jan 2007 so I guess it is about due to fail.

So I decided to get rid of both drives and just buy a single 2TB Western Digital WD20EURS from DVR_Dude on eBay. (The drive was manufactured in March 2013 so it should have the WDIDLE issue correct?) I didn't transfer any data over so this would be like a brand new TiVo.

I got the drive and installed it. Disconnected the E-Sata drive since I didn't need it anymore (and couldn't use it anway since I now have a single 2TB internal drive). The TiVo booted fine no problems. The TiVo software it came with was 9.4 (a really old version from around July 2008 that DVR_Dude says is the most stable for upgrades). I went through guided setup with no problems. Before I was able to download the latest version of the TiVo software (11.0k) I contacted my Cable Company (Time Warner in Columbus, Ohio) and had a long time contact there who was the goto person for Cable Cards activate the cable cards since obviously I changed the hard drive. The strange thing is that neither the CableCard ID or the HOST ID numbers changed on either of the 2 cablecards I have. Shouldn't those numbers have changed since I have a new hard drive? He sent hits to the cards but we couldn't get them to authorize.

I decided to put that off until my TiVo had the latest version of the software installed. So I forced connections and after many hours I finally had 11.0k software. We tried to send hits to the cards again with no luck. As a last ditch effort I decided to do a Clear and Delete of everything. However that process kept running even after 4 hours (there weren't any recordings on the drive as it was practically new). Should clear and delete run that long? I decided to pull the power on the TiVo and it rebooted but the TiVo kept staying at the ""Almost there Just a few minutes more" screen. I tried powering it off and on again and it can't get past that screen. So either the drive failed or the TiVo software got corrupted. I ran Kickstart 54 and the SMART test passed but the test /dev/hda failed. I then connected the drive to my PC and the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and initially the SMART status on the drive said FAILED. I then ran a extended test on the drive over night and it passed. In any case I contacted DVR_Dude and they said to send the drive back and they would send me a new one.

So for now I put the old drives back and I got the cable cards working again (although I had to replace one of the 2 cards since we couldn't get the one in slot 2 to authorize) and now the TiVo is back to the way it was.

I wasted a good day dealing with this. So my fear is that I am going to go through this long process all over again when I get the replacement drive. Does anyone know why the CableCard and Host ID's didn't change with the new hard drive? Is there some sort of steps I should take when I get the new drive?

IIRC, the "Clear and Delete Everything" on a TivoHD with a new 2 TB drive took many hours. I might have even had to let it run overnight, though I'm not sure of that. I would try again, perhaps before you go to bed. In the morning, you should find it completed. Of course, I'm no expert, and YMMV.

IIRC, the "Clear and Delete Everything" on a TivoHD with a new 2 TB drive took many hours. I might have even had to let it run overnight, though I'm not sure of that. I would try again, perhaps before you go to bed. In the morning, you should find it completed. Of course, I'm no expert, and YMMV.

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I sent the drive back. But even if I still had it I couldn't run clear and delete again since the drive wouldn't boot.

I wasted a good day dealing with this. So my fear is that I am going to go through this long process all over again when I get the replacement drive. Does anyone know why the CableCard and Host ID's didn't change with the new hard drive? Is there some sort of steps I should take when I get the new drive?

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I would not expect to see the CableCard and Host ID's change since you aren't changing the hardware associated with each (same CableCard and the Host ID should be associated with the interface/mainboard).

I would not expect to see the CableCard and Host ID's change since you aren't changing the hardware associated with each (same CableCard and the Host ID should be associated with the interface/mainboard).

Scott

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So all would be needed is to have the cable company re-authorize the cable cards?

I would not expect to see the CableCard and Host ID's change since you aren't changing the hardware associated with each (same CableCard and the Host ID should be associated with the interface/mainboard).

Scott

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It is not so for some reason, if you have a working TiVo with a cable card paired read the data than do a C&D all, when you able to get back to the cable card screen the data will have changed and card will have to be re-paired. You can tell by the VAL as that will look like this if not paired Val ? 0aa, if paired it will look like this Val V 0xaa (aa being some number)